Tag: smartphone wallet

Mobile wallet partnership formed between Neiman Marcus and Capital One

| March 3, 2015

The retailer has decided to take its own direction instead of choosing to accept payments through Apple Pay.

Neiman Marcus, the luxury retailer, has now joined forces with Capital One in order to create its own mobile wallet so that its credit card customers will be able to use an app on their smartphones in order to pay for purchases while in store.

At first, the mobile app will be available only as an iOS application, so it will be for iPhone users.

This mobile wallet app will integrate with a number of different credit cards, including the Neiman Marcus card, in addition to Bergdorf Goodman, American Express, MasterCard, Visa, and Discover. Similar to Apple Pay, it will make it possible for customers to be able to buy items, in-store, without having to use their actual plastic credit cards. At the moment, the app won’t support the use of gift cards.

This helps to explain why Neiman Marcus chose not to sign on with the Apple Pay mobile wallet.

Mobile Wallet PartnershipIt is clear that the retailer preferred to create its own competing mobile payments platform. That said, what is quite interesting about this application, and what makes it very different from Apple Pay is that it is compatible with more versions of the smartphone. At the moment, Apple Pay can be used only with the iPhone 6 and the iPhone 6 Plus. However, the mobile payments wallet from Neiman Marcus will be available to users of several different versions of that iOS based smartphone.

While Apple Pay may be the most well recognized and visible smartphone wallet, there isn’t a single app in this space that has reached the point that it can say that it can block out most other competing applications that are hoping to make their way into this space.

Neiman Marcus isn’t the only one to choose not to sign on with Apple and that has decided to create its own mobile wallet. Starbucks – the company that is typically considered to be the most successful mobile payments venture in the United States – has also done so, as have Walmart, Exxon Mobil, 7-Eleven, and Southwest Airlines.

Softcard NFC based mobile payments to be used at Subway

| September 18, 2014

This deal between the sandwich chain and the service formerly known as Isis will rule out Apple Pay for the moment.

Subway, the sandwich chain, is now teaming up with Softcard in order to provide customers with the opportunity to use mobile payments to pay for their meals instead of a traditional credit or debit card.

The announcement stated that the NFC technology based mobile wallet will be usable at Subway next month.

As of October 1, Softcard mobile payments will be an accepted form of transaction at Subway. This joint venture among Verizon Wireless, T-Mobile USA, and AT&T Mobility was originally called Isis Wallet, but recently rebranded itself in order to place some distance between its name and the militant group that is currently terrorizing parts of the Middle East. This app is now supported by over 80 different mobile devices and is preloaded on over 30 of them.

The Softcard wallet will let customers choose their smartphone as a payment method.

Softcard - SubwayAll that customers need to do to use this mobile payments service through their NFC enabled smartphone is to tap the terminal at the Subway restaurant. This is now being rolled out after having completed a pilot program last year. Now, it will be available in over 26,000 locations of the restaurant found throughout the United States.

That said, despite the fact that the iPhone 6 now finally has NFC technology built into it, its users will still need to continue to use traditional transaction methods, at least for the next little while. The reason is that the Apple Pay service has been launched by that device maker and the iPhone 6 will be restricted exclusively to that service, at least for the first year after its release. Therefore, despite the fact that the technology is compatible, the wallet formerly known as Isis will not be available for Apple smartphone users.

That said, Michael Abbot, the CEO of Softcard, has stated in a recent blog post that the company is “actively working with Apple” to make that mobile wallet compatible with the iPhone 6 at some point next year.